We have tested the Apple M1 Max powered MacBook Pro on music sessions. Now we have the first post-production test of a 2nd-gen Apple Silicon powered mac computer and just for fun, we compare it with a 2018 Intel-powered Mac mini to see how it measures up on a post session with a ProRes video playing.

First Impressions

Before we get to the test, I just wanted to share my first impressions of the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with an M1 Max System on a Chip with 64GB of unified memory.

I am replacing it with my 2012 MacBook Pro, which I bought back in 2012 and so it really doesn’t owe me anything. What is interesting is that unlike Russ’ 1st gen M1 MBP which is smaller and thinner than the 2nd-gen M1, you can see that the old school 2012 15” MBP is both larger and thicker than the new 2021 16” MBP.

When it came to setting up my new M1 Max laptop, it was simplicity itself, right from the unboxing experience to switching it on for the first time to installing the software.

Although I was able to set up the new MBP to connect to my wi-fi, and even though there are more ports on it, 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports using USB-C, as well as an HDMI and SD card ports, there is no Ethernet port.

So my first challenge was to fix that, I needed an adaptor, but what ports would I need on this adaptor? I didn’t want to end up with a bag full of adaptors for each different application, like Ethernet, USB-A sockets for things like my iLok, and really old-school connectivity which includes VGA, which I need for the projectors at church.

My research led me to select a USB C Laptop Docking Station from Amazon which extends one USB C port to Dual Monitor 4K HDMI, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, 3 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, USB C Power Charging Port (max 100W), USB C Data Transfer port (5Gbps), SD/Micro SD card readers and 3.5mm Mic/audio.

This gave me everything I needed, plus a little bit more, it offers another USB-C data port to replace the one it is plugged into, and I was even more impressed when it arrived as it’s so compact.

Check out our article MacBook Pro 2021 With M1 Max - Experts Give Their First Impressions to get more details on these new very powerful Apple Silicon laptops.

The Test

We have been asked to undertake a post-production related test by a number of community members summed up by this request from Pedro Lima…

“I suggest a test with a video file (perhaps DNxHD) on a multichannel session, like 5.1 and Atmos to emulate a post environment. I think that's another way to check performance in other aspects. I think...
Cheers!”

So the first thing I have tried with my new MacBook Pro was to see how it would perform on a post-production session, the challenge is choosing a session. One of the challenges, especially with post-production content is that so much of the content we work on, we cannot share here on Production Expert. Then I remembered that Netflix had released FREE Dolby Atmos Pro Tools Sessions Of Their Sol Levante Anime Production which you get learn more about and get the session download files by clicking the button below…

I also thought it would be fun to compare running this session on both my new M1 Max powered MacBook Pro and my Mac mini 2018 which is a 6 core 3.2GHz Intel Core i7 with 32 gigs of RAM.

The Sol Levante project is is a full Dolby Atmos session, albeit somewhat simplified with busses and objects using 262 voices, which meant I could not run it on my Mac mini HDX 1 system, without enabling the Hybrid Engine to then have access to 2048 voices.

My Intel-powered Mac mini could not even play this session with the Dynamic Plug Processing disabled, I had to enable it just to get the session to run. Then I tried to reduce the Hardware buffer size but I found that I needed to change the buffer size, then save and close the session and then re-open it otherwise the session would not play at all. I established that the smallest buffer size I could have was 256 samples. Any lower, and it would not play on my Mac mini.

The only thing I did on the MacBook Pro was to reassign the outputs to my MacBook Pro speakers and I was away, and on my MacBook Pro I could reduce the hardware buffer size down to 32 samples and disable the Dynamic Plugin Processing. But to provide a fair comparison I set both computers to a buffer size of 256 samples and enabled Dynamic Plugin Processing.

The video file provided with the session is an Apple ProRes 4444 at 1920x1080 file.

This Is An Unapproved System

Remember like our previous tests, this is Pro Tools 2021.10 running on an unapproved OS (macOS Monterey 12.0.1) on an, as yet, unapproved computer as Avid is yet to approve the Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max powered computers yet.

Also, we are running the session on the internal boot drive, rather than on a separate media drive, which is how the Mac mini system is configured.

We are only using the Avid Stock plugins as there are issues with some plugins, that will be resolved when iLok releases the next version of their software.

When we start the test, what you will be looking at is the MacBook Pro screen with the Big Counter and System Usage windows open on the right-hand side and then to keep things as simple as possible on the left-hand side you will be able to see the Big Counter and System Usage from the Mac mini.

There you have it. The session played without any issues right down to 32 samples of hardware buffer size, playing off the internal drive, which is not recommended by Avid and the video engine worked without any issues even though neither the OS nor the computer are approved by Avid yet. Whereas my Mac mini 2018 running macOS Mojave, an approved computer running an approved OS and the session is on a separate SSD media drive as recommended by Avid, could not play the session with Dynamic Plugin Processing disabled and when enabled could only play with the hardware buffer size set to at least 256 samples.

What’s Next

Next up is to try swapping out my Mac mini 2018 for my new MacBook Pro 2021 to see how the HD Driver performs with my Pro Tools HDX1 system with the HDX card in an Avid Thunderbolt 3 desktop chassis.

Need More Information?

If you are expecting delivery of, or are planning to order, a new Mac which is powered with an Apple Silicon processor or that uses macOS 12 Monterey then make sure you check out our compatibility guides before making them the centre of your studio setup.

• Apple Silicon compatibility guide

• macOS Monterey compatibility guide